2012 Oscar Predictions

We're in the home stretch of the year, which means that most Hollywood heavy-hitting Oscar contenders are either out, or just about to come out (with a few notables that have already come and gone - to DVD). So, out of curiosity, and because I'm really not overwhelmingly excited about anything slated to debut in the next month and a half (nor was I too jazzed about anything in the ten and a half months before now), I decided to do some research, test the waters, and take the temperature of the current Oscar race. I did some googling and came up with a list - from various sources - of which movies are likely contenders, which might be upsets, and what movies are worth watching before the Oscars.


You're probably aware that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences earlier this year yet again changed the nomination voting system for Best Picture. Now, rather than a hard and fast 5 or 10 nominees, depending on the number of first place votes a film gets in the nomination round (it must receive at least 5% of the first place votes), it will be listed as a Best Picture Contender. Among the sites I read, the common consensus seems to be that we should expect seven (7) Best Picture nominees. So, I went with that.


I read - and actually put together a little spread sheet of contenders - the top picks list from Indie Wire, Reelz,  the Awards Prophets, Entertainment Weekly, and the LA Times' blog The Insider. (It is worth noting that these lists will likely all change as more reviews come out and the climate evolves for each film. Not all articles were written around the same time, either; for example, the EW one is from August. But let's play along anyway.) With the exception of Entertainment Weekly's contributor's picks, the lists were ranked in order of most likely to take the top prize. Because so many focused on seve real competitors, I looked at the top seven from each of those to determine if there were any unanimously agreed upon choices. There were three:


The Descendants
War Horse
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close


I will make it a point to see each of those. Among other notable contenders, Moneyball, Midnight in Paris, The Artist, and The Help were in the top seven for all but one of the four lists. So those goes up there. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo made two top seven lists.


When calling in the top ten, Tree of Life, appears three times, while J. Edgar and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy garner two votes each (J. Edgar was lower on many lists, just FYI). Other notables include: Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Ides of March, A Dangerous Method, Young Adult, Hugo, and occasional shout-outs for The Iron Lady, Carnage, and We Bought a Zoo. Tin Tin is looking like the potential front runner for animated, assuming it qualifies for that category.


So what are the take-aways from this little project? First, I have to eat my words with the League, because I as convinced that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 would earn a Lord of the Rings style nomination, yet it wasn't on any of the lists I looked at. Therefore, if you're trying to assemble your list of what to see before the 84th Academy Awards, as I am, then these are likely the fifteen you will want to focus on:

The Descendants
War Horse
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Moneyball
Midnight in Paris
The Artist
The Help
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Tree of Life
J. Edgar
A Dangerous Method
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Young Adult
Hugo
The Ides of March

Logline Central - Ring 3D

Logline Central is an irregular segment that takes a deeper look at loglines of scripts or projects that have just been purchased, as listed on DoneDealPro.

There's been a lot of talk recently about the 3D craze that seems to be hitting Hollywood (and, some worry, will undermine Hollywood even further). John August tried to put out the fire a bit this week, but it's hard to deny that 3D is everywhere - and increasingly so.

I'm not looking to debate the pros and cons of the 3D boom as it affects writers. (The short, if you're wondering, is that with 3D really taking off now, only projects that easily lend them selves to a z-axis integration will be greenlit.) It makes for some fun viewing experiences, but the decisions to go back and reshoot a lot of pictures in 3D to try and jump on board the Avatar kick seems a bit much. Avatar had flying... dragon things (as did How To Train Your Dragon). Flight looks cool in 3D. (Cough Up cough.) Other things don't so much.

Horror, though, is one of those things that I think can look good with the added dimension. I never saw Valentine 3D, but I heard it was campy and gory enough to work with the medium. Well, this week there's another one added to the franchise.

Title: Ring 3D

Logline: Teens find a VHS player that still works.

Writer: David Loucka

More: Sequel. Third installment of "The Ring" franchise. Walter Parkes & Laurie MacDonald will produce. Vertigo and Benderspink will executive produce. The film will be in 3D.

Ok - for a change, I won't linger too much on the logline itself. If you've read any of the other Logline Centrals, you'll probably guess that I think this is a less-than-stellar logline. I mean... this can happen at a pawn shop with no cinematic repercussions whatsoever. That's beside the point this week.

No, the reason I chose Ring 3D as our feature this week is that a few of us in the League - including yours truly - were taught by Loucka while at NYU. At the time, he had finished some work on Snakes On A Plane (I know you all know it) and was working on other things. Loucka had some interesting ideas about my script in particular, which really benefited from his more mainstream Hollywood career. He helped me break out of a structure that wasn't working, expand my idea, and really turn it into something much more workable. He's not necessarily a household name (as much as screenwriters can be), but it's good to be able to say, "Hey, I know him. He was my teacher." Plus, the Ring franchise helped kick-start the Japanese import horrors, which tend to be pretty popular, so it's double nice to see him getting in on the action.